An audio apparatus is known that plays back media data stored in an external media, such as a universal serial bus (USB) memory, an i-Pod (registered trademark), or a compact disc (CD). The media data mentioned here means, for example, music data or video image data.
An audio apparatus that reads file type data stored in a disk, such as a CD or a CD-Recordable/Rewritable (CD-R/RW) disk, and plays back music data is disclosed.
This kind of audio apparatus detects an music gap signal as information on a change in music (hereinafter, referred to as an “music gap”) that is added to each file and plays back each piece of music or skips playing back to skip a track and plays back the subsequent piece of music.
The above described conventional technology is disclosed, for example, in Japanese Patent No. 3775663.
However, with the conventional audio apparatus, there is a problem with stream-type data (hereinafter, referred to as “stream data”), where successive multiple music data are contained in a single block of data, in that the apparatus cannot accurately detect the music gaps.
For example, with the conventional audio apparatus, a predetermined amount of stream data is accumulated (hereinafter, referred to as “buffering”) in order to play back the stream data without pausing the sound output. Furthermore, with the conventional audio apparatus, if stream data compressed in a predetermined format is received, playback of sound is performed after restoring (hereinafter, referred to as “decoding”) the sound.
Accordingly, because the conventional audio apparatus performs buffering and decoding on the received stream data, a time lag occurs until the time at which the sound is actually played back.
Therefore, with the conventional audio apparatus, a time difference occurs between the time at which a music gap signal indicating a boundary of a music is received and a music gap of a sound that is actually played back. Accordingly, although the time at which the sound is actually played back is not at the time of music gap, the conventional audio apparatus erroneously detects the sound as a music gap.
Accordingly, creating a practical audio apparatus that accurately detects music gaps even in stream-type data, in which successive multiple music data are contained in a single block of data, is a significant problem.